|
|
Linux
is basically free software and is largely used in servers. It is a 32-bit multitasking
Unix-based operating system.
This operating system was originally developed by a
student like us, Linux Torvalds at the University of Helsinki, Finland.
While he
was working on Minix which is a small UNIX system, he wanted to develop that system
beyond its standards.
His first release was version 0.02 in 1991. Then he released
Linux Kernel version 1.0 on March 14, 1994 with the general public license making
the source code freely available to public.
|
After that many new versions were released.
As it
is common that any operating system may have some bugs, users are trying to fix
the new bugs that come into light.
Generally the versions for Linux is given as
a.b.c, if b is an even number then the version is stable; otherwise the version
is a beta-quality release for developers which may be unstable. If bugs are fixed
then c is incremented.
Also
many companies released their own operation systems based on this Linux Kernel.
This
operating system was originally designed to run 32 bit on x386. But currently it
runs on many processors, platforms and supports many programming languages.
This
operating system is an open source development so that anybody can change or redistribute
the source code which is the unique feature.
Major companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems,
Oracle Corporation, Red Hat, Dell, Hewlett Packard, and Novell etc. support this
operating system.
Some of the applications of the operating system are PlayStation3,
routers, mobile phones, super computers, desktop computers.
Because it is cheap
and easily modified, it is largely used in embedded systems also.
The latest stable version of Linux Kernel is 2.6.26 with much advancement for wireless,
server virtualization and improved web cam support and multimedia.
This version
has a built-in debugger and a built-in RAM memory tester. Now Linux is regarded
as a server platform worldwide.
|
